Tuberculosis (TB) continues to cause significant mortality and morbidity throughout the world, especially in HIV-infected individuals. Increases in drug resistant TB cases have been occurring in many high endemic countries that have limited resources to identify and diagnose patients. Standard diagnostic techniques for TB include sputum smear microscopy to detect acid fast bacilli and microbiological culture confirmation. As a result, diagnosis of TB is both difficult and time consuming, especially in smear-negative, HIV-infected and pediatric patients. Molecular technologies are under development for TB case detection and identification of drug resistance mutations in lower levels of the health care system. These technologies will make use of sputum samples, the most important specimen type for TB diagnosis. Processing of sputum prior to PCR amplification will be necessary. A simple, inexpensive device to purify DNA from sputum and re-suspend the DNA in a buffer along with a compatible transfer system to molecular diagnostic assays is being sought.